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This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

nns.ee

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Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#41

Post by madushan1000 »

squarefoot wrote: post #28

Any chances that opening a root shell into the modem can be used to grab the closed firmware, reverse engineer it, then swap with an open source one? I mean it's not just about security but also being able to implement nice things to have running and connected while for example the phone operating system sleeps between calls.

No need to actually do the re work(at least re the whole firmware), if you google a little bit you can find a leaked source to a firmware related to the modem in pinephone. look for mdm9607, mdm9x07, mdm9207. Also, some devs actually managed to replace the linux part of the firmware with linux build from source recently. I think they're trying to get mainline linux running now

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#42

Post by stavros »

oblio wrote: post #20
fouc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's probably about the same ram & cpu as my desktop 16 years ago.

I started with a Pentium I, 166Mhz, 16MB, 1GB HDD, and I'm not even that old. I imagine we have folks here that started on a PDP :-) My P1 would stutter while playing MP3s :-))

166 MHz? You splurged for a good one! Mine was 100 MHz, the rest was the same though. 16 MB RAM, those weren't the days...

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#43

Post by dtech »

unnah wrote: post #24
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulatory reasons. There are a lot of things that FCC regs say that devices that transmit either must or must not do, which made more sense back when everything was analog. Now that the device is a full computer and can be programmed to do whatever you want, the way the industry has decided to best fulfill all those requirements is to make the computer do exactly and only what is required and then lock it down into…

Do those regulations explicitly say that the RF device is not allowed to be programmable by the user? And isn't the user legally forbidden from substantially modifying the RF behaviour in any case?

Requiring a device to not allow illegal RF behavior is significantly easier to require and audit than policing the actions of millions of consumers.

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#44

Post by benja123 »

oblio wrote: post #20
fouc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's probably about the same ram & cpu as my desktop 16 years ago.

I started with a Pentium I, 166Mhz, 16MB, 1GB HDD, and I'm not even that old. I imagine we have folks here that started on a PDP :-) My P1 would stutter while playing MP3s :-))

When I was 6 my parents decided to buy a PC for our home. I think it must have been a 286, but I really don’t remember. I do remember moving to a 386 and then a 486.

Lots of fond memories of norton commander, wordperfect and the old versions of battle chess.

Good times! I wish I had understood back then how much computers were going to change the world. Luckily my parents did.

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#45

Post by mod »

taneq wrote: post #30
oblio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started with a Pentium I, 166Mhz, 16MB, 1GB HDD, and I'm not even that old. I imagine we have folks here that started on a PDP :-) My P1 would stutter while playing MP3s :-))

When I was a kid we had a BBC Micro. In university we had CD burners but if you bumped the computer or did anything else while it was burning the CD, the disc was ruined. :P

I splurged in high school for a 4x cdrw drive by Sony.

I had to kill all extra processes or else the machine (maybe the fault of the HDD) couldn't keep the buffer filled and the write operation would fail.

I made a lot of coasters, but that was my favorite time with computers (1999 or so).

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#46

Post by amahajan »

I have been using these modems at work, specifically the EC25/EC20. They come with linux with some limitations. These modems are typically meant for IOT devices and you can get them for ~ 16/18 USD (or even lower). 4G/3G/2G, with around 128/256M flash and 128M RAM and 1.3GHz Arm Cortex A7. They are pretty powerful for their size, cost, current consumption and usability. Almost all such parts can be hacked across manufacturers see

https://i.blackhat.com/USA-19/Wednesday/us-19-Shupeng-All-Th...

You can get the Linux distribution and a compilation environment for these from the manufacturer (source code). You may need to have a business account though.

Linux binaries can be used on these, we have tried code compiled in Rust, Go etc cross compiled for arm target and used on these targets, though the primary development is still in c / c++

They come with a bit dated OPENSSL, though you can compile to a newer version and use that. SQLITE comes built in

There is support for peripheral access I2C, SPI, SDIO, I2S etc. You could possibly create a simple gaming console with LTE connectivity, since the SPI can drive a TFT and there are IOs for keypad and I2C for touch and accelerometer, gyro etc

Actual modem FW is not available, since that would be Qualcomm properietary!

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#47

Post by xx_ns »

busymom0 wrote: post #33
dtx1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses darkhttpd https://unix4lyfe.org/darkhttpd/

The blog post does state they are using darkhttpd but the network request for the blog post says "Server: nginx". Does darkhttpd use nginx inside or something?

Author here! I'm serving a load of different services on that domain, which are all behind nginx.

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#48

Post by xx_ns »

cheschire wrote: post #25

Now it just needs to charge / run from solar and it can be dropped anywhere with signal. I wonder what sort of wattage this thing draws.

Author here! I'll try to figure the power draw out some time in the future. Currently, the phone's just always plugged in and being powered over USB.

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#49

Post by indymike »

austinjp wrote: post #21
hannofcart wrote: post #4

It's amazing that posting this on HN has not melted it down. Are you using an edge CDN like Cloudflare to provide caching?

Perhaps I'm not being very generous, but I'm often kinda surprised when sites do meltdown from the HN effect -- although I recognise it depends on a lot of factors.

Seems like a lot of times the meltdown is just conservative rate limits on linux shared hosting. It's too bad because a lot of times it happens to sites that are getting their first substantial exposure.

Re: This Blog is now hosted on a GPS/LTE modem

#50

Post by bayindirh »

oblio wrote: post #20
fouc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's probably about the same ram & cpu as my desktop 16 years ago.

I started with a Pentium I, 166Mhz, 16MB, 1GB HDD, and I'm not even that old. I imagine we have folks here that started on a PDP :-) My P1 would stutter while playing MP3s :-))

I started with a C64, tried copying games from magazines to try. Then I got a 486DX. I don't remember the rest. :D
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